A laundry treating apparatus such as a general dryer or washer having a drying function may include a drum rotatably provided inside a body thereof and a hot air supply means provided inside the drum to supply a hot air at high temperature, thereby performing the function of supplying the hot air at high temperature into the drum in a state that clothes are put into the drum by a user to evaporate moisture included in the clothes.
In recent years, a laundry treating apparatus having various additional functions such as de-wrinkling, softening, de-odor, de-static and scent addition to clothes subsequent to the completion of drying as well as drying clothes has received a positive reaction from the market. Such additional functions are implemented by spraying steam or liquid such as a fragrant solution and the like into the drum during the drying process. For this purpose, the laundry treating apparatus may include a storage tank for storing such liquid and a spraying means for spraying the liquid stored in the storage tank into the drum.
Through this, steam may be sprayed to perform de-wrinkling, de-odor, static electricity prevention, and softening functions, and a fragrant solution may be sprayed to add a desired scent.
On the other hand, such additional functions may be carried out by selecting a preset course or selecting only a specific function through the user, and all the user's intentions may be entered by manipulation buttons provided on a manipulation panel of the laundry treating apparatus.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating an example of a manipulation panel in the related art. Though the manipulation panel illustrated in FIG. 1 does not include any means for manipulating the foregoing additional functions, it is seen that a plurality of manipulation buttons are provided thereon. More specifically, the manipulation panel may include a power button 10, a course selection button 12 for selecting each preset course, an operation/pause button 14 for initiating or pausing the operation of each course, a dry level button 16 for selecting the level of drying, a temperature control button 18 for indicating the temperature of hot air supplied at the time of drying, a dry time set button 20 for selecting a dry time, a beep sound set button 22 for setting the volume of a beep sound, an option selection button 24 for setting various selection items, and the like.
Some of the buttons may be selectable according to its selected course but some of them may be non-selectable, and thus the user should be familiar with each of the operational relations. According to circumstances, unselectable buttons may be effectuated to invalidate its previous selection or generate a malfunction of the machine.
When a means for manipulating the foregoing additional functions is added in this situation, manipulation convenience may be decreased due to the use of a lot of buttons, and A/S requests may occur very frequently due to simply unskilled manipulation.
Moreover, though the foregoing additional functions may perform various functions according to their combinations, only whether to spray steam or fragrant solution may be simply selected in the related art, and thus a means for more actively utilizing the additional functions is required.